Statement by Mike Litt, Consumer Program Advocate at U.S. PIRG Education Fund, on todays announced VW settlement. For more details on what a strong settlement agreement ought to look like, please see the open letter that we released earlier this week with other consumer and environmental groups.

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Federal agencies are preparing to settle with several big banks to resolve charges that they manipulated foreign currency exchange rates. Will those banks be allowed to write off the settlement payments as a tax deduction? If so, much of the costs of the payment will be shifted back onto taxpayers.

Statement regarding indications some federal agencies may reopen old banking settlements, as reported in yesterday’s New York Times. The SEC is similarly reportedly delaying the final execution of August’s announced $16.65 billion settlement with Bank of America while deliberating about issuing waivers that would soften regulatory repercussions of the deal.

“When people hear that this stuff is deductible, it just feels like adding insult to injury,” says Phineas Baxandall, a senior policy analyst and tax specialist at U.S. PIRG, a left-leaning consumer protection research group that has written reports on the tax deductions. “And when it’s not transparent, it’s shady.”

The overwhelming majority of doctors -- a total of 93 percent -- are concerned about the common meat industry practice of using antibiotics on healthy animals for growth promotion and disease prevention, according to a new poll released today commissioned by Consumer Reports and released by Consumers Union and U.S. PIRG.

In congressional primaries, bigger wallets give a small set of mega-donors an outsized voice, according to new information released today by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Demos. Just 5,485 donors who gave $1,000 or more to candidates in the primaries outspent the at least 440,362 small donors who gave less than $200, and 65 percent of all candidate contributions came from donors giving chunks of $1,000 or more.

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UPDATED: August 8. Many of Enron's schemes involved sham transactions with itself that the SEC alleged had "no economic substance." Taking a page from Enron's book, mega-bank Goldman Sachs is now moving tons of aluminum around and around its Detroit warehouses in similar transactions without apparent economic substance except to increase Goldman profits while raising costs of beer, soda and other goods relying on aluminum, delaying deliveries and disrupting aluminum markets. At a Senate hearing on the practice, Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) said: "This movie will not end well."

Last week the FDA announced a ban on the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) from infant formula packaging. The rule change should provide some comfort to parents — however, it also showcased the FDA’s sluggish pace of action, and demonstrates to states that they shouldn’t wait for federal action to move forward with public health rules on their own.

As a Tuesday, July 16th Senate showdown vote on the confirmation of Richard Cordray to direct the CFPB approaches, consumer protection opponents continue to make stuff up, such as their latest false claim that its use of data equates it with the NSA. Actually, it's the banks, not the CFPB, spying on consumers.

Talks on the European and U.S. trade agreement start this week and are being hailed by both sides as a way to strengthen their lagging economies. But for consumers, lowered trade barriers too often mean the crippling of vital public health and safety rules.